Nokia OZO VR camera launches in Europe for €55,000

Nokia OZO, the Finnish company's 360-degree virtual reality camera, is now available in Europe for €55,000 (£43,000).

The OZO can record 360-degree audio and video in full stereoscopic 3D for playback on virtual reality headsets. Its eight synchronised cameras capture fully-spherical footage while the same number of microphones recreate the direction that recorded sound originated from.

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The camera, which looks a bit like a futuristic (and very expensive) hairdryer, can also be mounted to a drone for capturing aerial footage.

Nokia has put the OZO to the test capturing footage of astronauts wearing spacesuits in immersion pools at Nasa headquarters in Houston, Texas. Other footage demoed by Nokia at a launch event in London included a band playing on top of a skyscraper and a short film where a grizzly bear comes across an unsuspecting group of campers.

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The high-end OZO captures some of the most absorbing virtual reality footage around. Viewed through a Samsung Gear VR headset (though the OZO's content is playable on any VR headset), the camera's footage creates an utterly convincing virtual world.

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Vesa Rantanen, head of R&D at Nokia Technologies told WIRED that the OZO was inspired by the first rumours of the Oculus Rift's development. While gaming has driven many of the advancements in virtual reality headsets to date, Rantanen is hopeful that the OZO will help Nokia take a lead in VR video. "We're working with movie studios and live performance artists - musicians and sportspeople - and also a lot of short form content; filmmakers, video makers and documentaries."

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At €55,000, however, the OZO is aimed squarely at professional filmmakers rather than consumers.

Nokia also faces competition from other companies making their own 360-degree cameras. In January, Nikon announced the KeyMission 360, while GoPro has already released the $15,000 Odyssey, which packs 16 Hero4 cameras into one rig for 360-degree footage capture.

Updated 18/03/16, 00:20: An earlier version of this article stated the Nokia OZO would cost €53,000. It will in fact cost €55,000.